Graham Gooch is to stand down from his role as England’s limited-overs batting
coach and concentrate solely on Test cricket.

Gooch is in India with the one-day squad, but his position for the three T20 and three one-day internationals in New Zealand next month will be taken by Graham Thorpe.

“We would like to see Graham [Gooch] focus on that area of the game,” said England managing director Hugh Morris. “We’ve got back-to-back Ashes series coming up and a five-Test series against India the year after so there is an enormous amount of high-profile Test cricket coming up.”

Thorpe has worked with the England Lions teams and other age-group sides at the National Cricket Performance Centre at Loughborough. “It is for this tour initially and then we will assess the situation,” said Morris, “ He has made a really good impression as a batting coach.”

Mark Ramprakash will act as Lions’ batting coach for their upcoming tour of Australia.